


a spoonful

by fated_addiction



Category: Korean Drama, Yiootjib Kkotminam | Flower Boy Next Door
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance, but dk what this is, madly in love with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 09:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no real method to constructing a story. Dok Mi survives like a writer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a spoonful

**Author's Note:**

> So, so charmed and anxious about _Flower Boy Next Door_ , it's not even funny. Anyways, spoilers up and including _The related keywords for ‘meeting’ are ‘fate’ and ‘ill-fated’_ because that's how I do it, etc.

Dok Mi draws a box.

Four corners, four sides.

The post-it is white.

 

 

-

 

 

There is no real method to constructing a story.

For example:

She is standing in the hallway. Her palms are sweaty. She is not close enough to the door. Enrique manages to linger around her, his back taunt as he heaves the boxes Do Hwi brought to the complex. There is Jin Rak and his roommate. Do Hwi remains a carefully crafted outsider; half the villain, more so the terrible memory with her wide, outrageous eyes and the slight, lazy snarl of her mouth. 

Dok Mi isn’t panicking – although it unravels briefly, lodged into her throat – and remains folded into herself, staring tiredly at everyone in front of her.

“We need to talk,” Jin Rak says to Enrique.

Enrique blinks. Do Hwi makes a nervous sound between her teeth.

“Why?” Enrique asks. “These boxes are heavy, er, well, I’d rather put them inside so that _ahjumma_ can check them out.”

“I’d rather not,” she says quietly.

You already can see where this is going.

 

 

What happens after is much more particular, if only because Enrique bursts back into her apartment right on cue, shivering with his hands rubbing together and his cheeks red and uncomfortable. For second, she gets his eyes – sharp and bewildered, until he turns his gaze to her and she is stuck again, wanting to say something like _i see you_ as he brightens.

“Everything,” she starts carefully. She pauses too. Her hands fold in front of her. “Is everything,” she tries again, “all right?”

He rocks back onto his heels. “Sure, sure,” he says. “It’s fine. We’re fine. But I really want to ask you about your friend, or your-not-so-friend friend because that sounds like a better way of calling her considering the way you look at her. I’m not really sure I liked the way she looked at you either.”

There is a messy question in there much like all the messy answers he gives her. She knows this because she has combed through most of his book with wise efficiency. She imagines like usual. It’s strangely different and the same because she knows him. Or thinks she knows him.

“What – ” Dok Mi stops herself and looks away.

“Ahjumma,” he tsks. His fingers touch her arm. Then he’s too close. “Wanna work?” he offers with a grin.

“No,” she says.

She thinks she may tell him.

 

 

-

 

 

She no longer has fond memories of her teacher.

She did once. Like all things, once, but her memories of her teacher are just as fast, just as abrupt and angry as her heart is when she sees Do Hwi appear in her life more and more and _more_.

Her teacher is not a character in this.

Jin Rak is. She did not craft him. After the hallway mess, she finds him in the morning, or rather, he finds her, milk carton in hand with a post-it obscured under his palm. Maybe it’s another story. Maybe it’s not. She knows this fact about Jin Rak: he is that much of a romantic.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He does not look at her.

She leans against the door and holds the knob tightly. Enrique is behind her, somewhere, and glued to match highlights.

“For what?” she asks. Her throat clears and she is still sleepy. She dreamt of high school again. She feels the cold at her throat. There are goosebumps.

“I did think she was your friend. I didn’t think about how genuine she could be. I’m not good at reading how genuine people can be.”

His eyes are dark. Or they become dark. Dok Mi tilts her head and looks at the floor.

“It was a long time ago,” she murmurs.

He steps forward. “It seems like it,” he says gently and she frowns. “But maybe,” he says, “maybe, she’s trying again?”

She wants to laugh. She might have too. But like all characters, you have to take into consideration the road untaken and if she were to laugh, she would have to be a different person, a braver person, and a larger person. She would have never stood on that railing, perfectly balanced. She would have never stretched her arms out, waiting for that gust of wind, strong enough because she was that frail, and knowing how cold the ground would be pressed against her face.

This is how she mostly remembers Do Hwi too. This is another introduction to a character, secondary but an introduction nonetheless. Do Hwi was once someone else. Do Hwi then grew into her cruelty. It was wild, much like her laughter used to be and as light as it remained, it was still able to ring into her ears and follow her into locking her apartment doors.

You can’t believe the best in everyone, she won’t say. It will send you crashing.

Instead she forces herself to look at him. There are wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. His breathing isn’t steady. A laugh breaks from somewhere behind her and she feels herself settle.

“I don’t know,” she answers anyway.

He stays watching her too closely.

 

 

Dok Mi becomes less cruel with her pen. Or so that’s what Enrique tells her; his drafts transform when she remembers the beach, when she identifies with that peculiar loneliness, and when he leans in close.

Her heart remains closed. She thinks and frowns. He watches her over her shoulder, his hand bent over the arm of her chair. He doesn’t notice. She knows this much and her fingers press into the pen, which presses back into the paper, moving to loop around a few words like ‘understanding’ and ‘slow’ and ‘focus’ for good measure. She knows she wants this to be good.

Her apartment feels warmer.

 

 

-

 

 

On the roof, they watch Tae Joon stare at the walls. The lights in the apartment are dim.

Enrique stands close to her. She puts a shy hand on his elbow. She does not try and steer him away. You learn to understand these moments, she thinks.

What they see: Seo Young barges into the apartment, fast enough to startle him. She stares at him. He stares at her. Dok Mi knows Enrique is smiling. She knows it’s tense. She knows it won’t reach his eyes. She wonders if he bites his lip. She no longer knows that Tae Joon does it. She thinks she no longer cares as much; it’s indirect and her mind is too set on processing the connections – Tae Joon to Enrique and then back and forth.

“I think it will be better,” Enrique says. If he is lying, she doesn’t know. If he is lying, she thinks she doesn’t want to know. There is a difference in that.

But she still makes a noise, lips pursed. It may sound surprised. Seo Young grabs Tae Joon’s arm and they are close. She listens to Enrique’s boots drag against the ground. The roof is cold and dirty. It’s always been dirty and probably will stay dirty.

This is called setting the stage.

Her nails are caught in the fabric of his coat.


End file.
